


Doff the Serge

by greerwatson



Category: Forever Knight
Genre: Backstory, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:28:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24479467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greerwatson/pseuds/greerwatson
Summary: What led Amanda Cohen to join the Toronto Police?
Relationships: Amanda Cohen/her husband
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	Doff the Serge

**Author's Note:**

> This story was first posted to FKFIC-L@LISTS.PSU.EDU on 31 May 2020.

“We need to talk.” 

Dave Cohen looked up from the term tests he was marking. He had thought Amanda upstairs already: she’d need to be up at crack of dawn. She looked worried, he thought. And tired. “Maybe we should leave it till tomorrow?” he suggested. “You look done in.” 

She shook her head. 

“Something wrong at work?” 

“No,” she said, almost absently, and sat down. 

“I know you said you take most of it in your stride—no point in complaining, you said. Just make trouble. For you. But if that bastard Myers has tried it on again?” He put down the red pen, and pushed the stack of tests a little away. 

She shook her head. “No, it’s not that. And, after all, Dave, he’s not the first to take a friendly comment as a come-on.” She forced a smile. “Nor the first to not take no for a final answer. It’s okay. I’m dealing with it in my own way. Actually,” and the smile became a little more genuine, “I’m getting quite a reputation as a cold fish, if not an ice bitch.” She sighed. For a moment, her eyes turned to the bottom shelf of their small bookcase, which still—after decades—held the secondhand copy of _Susannah, A Little Girl with the Mounties_ that Baba had given her for her ninth birthday. She’d longed to wear her own red serge tunic; and now she did. (Well, her own blue patrol jacket, except on dress parade.) “No, it’s not that; except then again, maybe it is in a way. There’s a rumour,” she said. “Myers hinted … well, he is a sergeant, and has the ear of the Inspector, if not the Superintendent.” She looked at Dave steadily. “There’s talk of a shake-up. Transfers. And Myers sort of looked in _my_ direction when the subject came up.” 

They’d transferred three times already. Each time, Dave had found a new job at a new school in a new system; but each time, he’d lost all seniority. He’d be starting, yet again, back down on the bottom rung at the basic pay grade. 

“I know,” she said, reading his face. “The Force is like the military. It’s just not fair on families.” 

He didn’t respond. They’d talked it out long ago. The RCMP was still set up with the implicit (if not, all too often _explicit_ ) assumption that wives were homemakers who followed their man. It wasn’t that long since the first woman had even been allowed to join the Force. The RCMP was, in his opinion, a creakily antiquated institution. But there was no arguing with the fact that Amanda had wanted to be a Mountie for a long, long time. 

She bit her lip. Her hands twisted in her lap. “I’ve been thinking maybe it’s time for a change,” she began finally. “A move of _our_ choosing. You’re from Toronto—how do you feel about going back? Your family’s there.” She paused. 

He didn’t quite grasp where she was going with this. 

“I’ve been looking into the Metro Police Force,” she said. “Calling around, sounding people out. A lateral transfer. _If_ I’m accepted, the pay and rank will be comparable. We’ll be in one place, permanently. Maybe it’s time we could start a family? And there’ll be opportunities, not just for regular patrol work but also perhaps I could transfer to plainclothes. What do you think of ‘Detective Cohen’?” She tried to smile. 

He was silent, trying to take it in. 

“Well,” she said, getting up heavily, “we don’t need to decide right away. _You_ can’t quit in the middle of the school year; and I don’t want to leave the detachment short-handed while we still have that drugs case we’re working on.” 

“Are you sure you want this?” Dave said carefully. 

”Well, put it this way—I’m thinking seriously about it.” She looked him squarely in the eye. “Obviously, this is a decision we both have to consider. It’ll mean another move for you, too.” 

He shook his head. “A _last_ move for both of us, you mean.” The idea began to sink in. Almost imperceptibly, he nodded. 

**Author's Note:**

> In "The Fire Inside", Capt. Cohen tells Natalie that, before joining the Toronto police, she had worked for "the feds", but left after a drugs raid led to a shoot-out in which her partner was killed. The term "feds" was probably used for the sake of the American audience: in a Canadian context, it can only mean that she once worked for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.


End file.
